


Pecca Fortiter

by JackOfNone



Category: Captain Blood - Sabatini
Genre: Drunk Sex, M/M, Pirates, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Elke Tanzer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/pseuds/JackOfNone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Si peccas, pecca fortiter: If you would sin, sin boldly!" -- Martin Luther.<br/>Two captains reach an accord among the wine and whores of Tortuga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pecca Fortiter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elke Tanzer (elke_tanzer)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elke_tanzer/gifts).



"Now," Levasseur said, filling the cheap tankard in front of him with incongruously expensive wine. "We shall drink to our deal, you and I, and consider it sealed."

Captain Blood raised the tankard to his lips and winced as the delicate, dry taste of the wine mixed on his tongue with the metallic tang of well-worn tin. He had hardly finished swallowing the draught when Levasseur took the cup directly from Captain Blood's hand and drank it down to the dregs.

"Sealed, it is, then?" Captain Blood said, with a wry smile. "And we haven't even signed the compact yet." At the mention of the contract, there was a rustle of paper from somewhere over in the corner of the tavern's warm and smoke-filled back room. Jeremy Pitt, who had been avoiding the attentions of the painted ladies by hiding behind his logbook and quill, looked up questioningly from his pile of sackcloth.

"Lend us your quill and inkpot, Monsieur Pitt," Levasseur called, "so that we may be done with the formalities between your Captain and myself." Jeremy stood up and set the inkwell on the table with a barely suppressed frown. Levasseur smirked in his direction. "Mon dieu, mon Capitaine, have you been neglecting your sweet log-keeper? The poor boy has gone sour!"

This comment turned young Jeremy's frown into a glare of full-blown annoyance, and he affected a stiff bow. "I'm sure you have a great deal of business to discuss with my captain," he said. "So if you'll excuse me, I will go see to the ship and trouble you no further."

"Business?" Captain Blood said, pouring himself another measure of wine. "Our business is done, save for the signing of the articles. All that's left is celebration, and ye're more than welcome to partake of as much trouble as ye can stand."

"Faith, sir, we've enough trouble on the sea," Jeremy said, with uncharacteristic stiffness. "If you'll give me leave, I'll stay out of it on land."

"In Tortuga?" Levasseur said, with a skeptical arch of one heavy brow. Pitt only bowed again, collected his logbooks, and left without another word. One of the girls who seemed to cling to Levasseur like smoke made to follow him, but Captain Blood waved her back with a casual gesture of his pipe.

Levasseur dipped the quill into the inkwell with incongruous delicacy and signed his name to the compact that lay pinned to the table by upturned tankards. When he had finished, Captain Blood did the same. The ink, gritty makeshift stuff that Jeremy had cobbled together from charcoal and water, transformed Captain Blood's elegant signature into a messy splatter. Captain Blood regarded the paper skeptically.

"Shall I sign it again?" he said. "That scratch could belong to anyone."

"We have witnesses," Levasseur said, gesturing expansively.

"The whores?"

"The most honest folk in Tortuga," Levasseur said. "What a whore wants, it is never a secret -- and what you want from her, why, that's no secret as well."

"Whereas it's quite complicated what a buccaneer wants, and it must be argued over for days and finally set down in writing," Captain Blood replied, taking a long draught of his wine.

"Ah! I believe that you may find that what a buccaneer wants is exactly as honest." Levasseur refilled his cup for the second time since they had drank to their accord, and peered at Captain Blood over the battered rim of the tankard, his eyes bright with what seemed to be a particularly cruel sort of mischief. To Captain Blood, at least, there was always something about Levasseur that suggested wickedness, even in his most charitable moods -- but that savage edge never seemed to deter the women of the port, who flocked around him like gulls. Perhaps, Captain Blood thought, there was something he was just not seeing, but at the moment it rather reminded him of a gaggle of country milkmaids playing with a sharp-eyed, long-toothed viper. As Captain Blood was studying his new partner, the swarthy Frenchman leaned in conspiratorially and nearly upset the wine bottle for his trouble. "I would very much like to put your honesty to the test, Monsieur le Sang. For you see, I know your deeds, but your nature -- that is mysterious to me."

Captain Blood shrugged. "Faith, a dull story it is." Finished with the tankard of wine, he set it upside down in front of him. "I have taken sides in a great many wars, some of which did not involve me in the slightest. I have had the title of Medicinae Baccalaureus bestowed upon me by the college of Dublin. And I spent two years in a Spanish prison."

Levasseur raised an eyebrow at this. "And your crime -- what was it?"

"Why, nothing but an empty purse and an errant tongue, it was."

Levasseur laughed at this -- a raw, cackling laugh of genuine amusement. "Contradictions! Paradoxes! Mon capitaine is a soldier in wars he does not fight! He talks his way into prison, but cannot talk his way out again!" Levasseur laughed again, slumping back in his chair, and Captain Blood reflected that perhaps it was Levasseur's open, unguarded passion that drew in his collection of women. It was certainly infectious, he mused, finding himself reaching over to help himself to the last of the wine. Levasseur waved for another bottle, and a bottle ended up perched on the corner of their table, waiting for a knife to crack the seal. Captain Blood winced -- the uneven green glass promised a passable drink at best. "If Monsieur does not wish to be honest..."

Sensing some veiled threat to the new-signed compact, Captain Blood pounced upon the opening. "It's only God's own truth I'm telling."

Levasseur only clucked his tongue. "I am not doubting your story. It is the honesty of your intent that I am doubting. For you see," he said, and the wicked viper's smile crept back onto his lips as he spoke, "it is not my habit to associate with men who are half-hearted in their pursuit of vice."

"Half-hearted?" Captain Blood asked, one eyebrow raised.

"This wine, it is the first I have seen you drink without measure. For all your wit, your words are guarded. And -- most damning! -- mon Capitaine, I have not seen you so much as glance at a lady without irritation or pity in your eyes." As if on cue, one of the girls who had perched herself on a nearby chair looked up at Captain Blood. Her face was shaded under a ratty red wig, and she looked at him with jaded weariness and what might have been a vague twinge of fear.

Captain Blood hated to be looked at like that.

"So I make an offer, Monsieur le Sang," Levasseur was saying. Captain Blood busied himself with cracking open the wine and gulping down an unpleasantly gritty mouthful, not bothering with the tankard. He could feel the wine beginning to get to his head...there was a reckless, dangerous feeling creeping upon him. If only he had had this much wine before signing the contract, he mused. Perhaps then he would have been spared all of his reservations.

"Oh? And what's this offer that wasn't a part of our accord?"

"Prove to me that you're an honest rogue," Levasseur said. He was leaning over the small table now, chin in his hand, studying Captain Blood's face as though it contained something delightfully interesting.

"What, with the girls?" Levasseur laughed.

"If you like," Levasseur said breezily. "Or, if you prefer, we could fetch that fair English boy who steers your ship so well--"

It may not have been a threat, but it roused Captain Blood nonetheless. He lashed out and seized Levasseur by his lace-trimmed collar, jerking him forward across the table. "Or this," Levasseur said, and before Captain Blood could utter a word, Levasseur occupied his mouth with a fervent kiss. He tasted wine, and the tang of salt.

Well, it had gotten Levasseur's attention off of Jeremy Pitt, at least.

With a great crash that made Captain Blood jump and reach reflexively for his sword before realizing it lay across the room, Levasseur kicked the table aside and fairly pounced upon Captain Blood. All of a sudden Levasseur's gloved fingers were winding their way into his hair, his powerful arm was sliding around his waist to toy with the straps of his breeches, and his broad legs tangling with his own. Perhaps, Captain Blood thought, this sort of thing was why young women threw themselves at Levasseur's boots.

There was a conspiratorial feminine whisper behind them, and the rustle of skirts. "Let them go," Levasseur hissed, as though Captain Blood might be inclined to detain them. Levasseur pushed forward again and Captain Blood felt his back pressed against a wall.

"Haven't ye any better place for the pursuit of honest vice?" Captain Blood asked. "There's enough nails in this wall to make a man feel as though he's being held at knifepoint by the entire Royal Navy."

Levasseur chuckled, a low and husky growl quite different from his usual laugh. "I can think of somewhere."

As they staggered towards Levasseur's room at the tavern, tangled together, Captain Blood reflected that he must be very drunk indeed.

* * *

Levasseur was gone by the time Captain Blood woke up. At least God was willing to dispense small mercies, though so far he had consistently failed to deliver on larger ones. He struggled out of the bed, searched about for his clothes, and cringed inwardly when he found them discarded near the door.

Captain Blood had almost finished lacing up his trousers when someone's attempt to open the door slowly and quietly was foiled by the grating shriek of rusted metal hinges. A sheepish head of ragged blonde hair appeared around the edge of the door.

"Jeremy," Captain Blood said. The young navigator hovered at the edge of the room.

"Captain," the navigator replied, bowing his head -- more to avoid looking at him than out of respect, Captain Blood suspected.

"Were ye sent to find me?" Captain Blood asked.

"No," Jeremy said quietly. "Nothing like that...you were with Levasseur all night, and I thought he'd either killed you or --" Here Jeremy faltered, his face coloring scarlet.

Considering he was sitting on Levasseur's bed in little more than his breeches, smelling of sweat and a great quantity of alcohol, Captain Blood decided that there was little point in denying it. "Yes, I bedded Levasseur. Or perhaps he bedded me -- the details are a bit hazy." Captain Blood instantly regretted the flippant remark when Jeremy Pitt turned his back to him abruptly, but not quickly enough to hide the wounded look that crossed his face.

A long silence spread out between them. _That fair English boy_, Levasseur had said, _who steers your ship so well._

"Jeremy," Captain Blood finally said. "Ye never offered so much as a word on my accord with Levasseur, when all the men who sail on the _Arabella_ were clamoring to get their say."

"You are better at such judgments than I," he said, his voice strained.

"It's the place of a navigator to say if the ship's gone off course," Captain Blood replied. Jeremy Pitt, having apparently composed himself, turned back to face him. Captain Blood was struck by the look on his friend's face -- an earnest, open glance that cut him to the quick.

"I think you've done right by us in signing on with him, seeing as we're a right lot of rogues," he said slowly. "But damned if I don't hate that man Levasseur."

"I think, in time, I could grow to hate him myself," Captain Blood mused. "Glad I am of a vote in favor of the venture, but if one of us doesn't find his sword in the heart of the other before the year's out, well...a miracle is what that would be."

Jeremy Pitt bit his lip, seemingly unable to form a response. Captain Blood stood up, crossed the distance between them in two swift strides, and laid his hands on Jeremy's shoulders. He felt the boy tense a bit, as though he had started to move and thought better of it. "Back to the ship we'll go, lad, and I swear ye can say all ye will about Levasseur with never a reprimand from me." This brought a hesitant smile to Jeremy's face, and Captain Blood looked away. The honest affection in the young man's eyes reminded him too strongly of Arabella, whom he had certainly lost forever when he threw in his lot with Levasseur.

"If we are to go back to the ship," Jeremy said, "get dressed first."

Captain Blood sighed, and knelt down to retrieve his shirt from the heap of linen and leather that he had abandoned near the door. It was then that he decided to revise his opinion on God's generosity with small mercies, as he realized that someone had stolen his boots.


End file.
